“Harold” came out as he threatened after the Show, and quite settled down with us. My elders talked about him and stopped when I came near. It made the housework quite entertaining to receive a note every half hour or so. I got into the habit of replying. First I put on his table the long English review; then a whole page one from the philosopher of the Squatters’ Journal.

“I don’t know about this English Johnnie,” he said, “but old Frogabollow in the Journal, I always wonder why they let him have so much space when it could be given to the latest prices. I must see what he says.”

This was daunting, so my next shot was the letter from the GREATEST AUSTRALIAN WRITER.

“I always thought that booze and rattiness and ‘pomes’ went together,” was the response to this. “So I must get your blooming little book and see what it is all about.”

“Haven’t you read it?”

“Never read a book since I left school. I had a cook last year who used to sit and read penny dreadfuls till the bread rose over the tub and fell on the floor.”

I did not know how to cope with this. I fell into a Government Dam of silence. Books were an excitement and joy to me. In teaching me manners Ma had laid down the rule, “When you don’t know what to say, say nothing.” I said nothing. I went on with my housework.

I shuddered. If I missed a stroke anywhere it would he put down to my inclination to write. Other girls could border on being slatterns without attracting attention.

I suddenly felt unhappy and full of failure.

No one that I knew had ever seen a real live author. I had imagined them as having different qualities of soul and intellect. When I had found myself in print—a suffering, mistake-making, walk-about person—it resulted in a frightful drop in the stock of authors. I had thought critics to be above authors as school teachers are above scholars. This English one must have been drunk—like Old Harris. The contemptuous dismissal of his praise was supported by Mr. Beauchamp’s attitude, and at times men who worked on the Penny Post had stayed with us, and there were tales that they could have been on big Sydney papers but for drink.

“Do you think I should read your book?” Mr. Beauchamp asked later.

“I wish you would never read it, but I can’t make out why you are interested in me, if you haven’t.”

“All the hubbub has brought you to my attention, like a filly that is advertised. I could not make out why Moongudgeonby was suddenly being called Five-Bob Downs, and found that it was because in a book written by some bit of a kid no bigger than a bee’s knee, Five-Bob Downs was owned by Harold Beecham, so people have the cheek to call me that. Some of them have asked me when I am going to settle down with Sybylla Melvyn. The young fellows say I am a lucky devil, that they would have a shot for themselves only that I am the hero of your dreams. I took it as a bit of chyacking while I was in Queensland, but when I got back to Gool Gool people buzzed like a swarm of bees. I thought it a rum thing that a girl could change the name of a place christened by the blacks hundreds of years ago. She must be a witch who could pull the wool over my eyes and have me tied up before I knew where I was, and I value my freedom.”

I began to feel worse than when Old Grayling’s letter came.

“I never thought of you—never heard of you,” I gasped weakly.

“But Harold Beecham is the fellow that all the girls are wild to see, and all the men are envious of.”

“But your name is Henry Beauchamp,” I murmured, wishing I could hide for a year.

“But I was nearly christened Harold, and Beauchamp is pronounced Beecham.”

“Harold is my favourite name—Harold. Earl of Kent, who fell at the Battle of Hastings with an arrow through his eye. A tragic thing to be conquered by an outsider. You have not the slightest resemblance to the Harold in the book. The name is a mere coincidence.” My voice would hardly come.

“Ha! Ha! A jolly coincidence. I know half-a-dozen young fellows who are pretending they are Harold Beecham without the name. When I found out you were Dick Melvyn’s youngster I was more astonished than ever, and came along to take a look at you. As soon as I clapped an eye on you I decided that I was going to take up my option.”

“What option?”

“On you. You proposed to me. I accept with alacrity. I would not have thought an oldster like me had a chance, only you put it in my head, I always go for first-class things and leave the ordinary stuff to the rabble.”

All the shame I had hitherto felt rolled into one lump was an infant to what I felt now. I, who would rather have died than “throw myself at a man”, seemingly had done just that. Ma was quite correct. There was no end to the annoyance caused by that feraboraceous book. I turned sick all through to think what further embroglios might spring from it. More and more I understood Ma, and was sorry for what I had brought upon her.

“Please understand,” I pled. “I never thought of you. The book is not real. The girl is only make-believe, and Harold Beecham a figment of imagination.”

“That’s what is so nice,” he laughed. “Make-believe and life are sometimes the same thing. You are Sybylla Melvyn, I am Harold Beecham, and not going to relinquish my advantage.”

What was I to do? I had a wild desire for flight, but he slipped into the doorway and was too big for me to pass. Was there anyone in all the world who would understand the mess I was in, or my agony of sensitiveness? I jammed my lips together to keep them steady, and sat down despairingly. Oh, why didn’t he understand; and how I could have adored him if he had!

“I’d like to put you in my waistcoat pocket and keep you safe,” he said, not laughing any more. “It suits me all to pieces to get into the show. I can give you so many things that you’ll soon forget you ever wrote a book.”

“Please go away where you won’t see me any more,” I said. “I am terribly upset by what has happened. Goodnight!”

He did not try to detain me. I went to my room. He slipped a note under my door before he went to bed: “The only thing doubtful is my age, otherwise you have made me the proudest man in Australia.”

I lay awake all night shivering with distress and listening to the mopokes and Willy wagtails. A strayed cow was as sleepless as myself, and told the world. A piffling wind sucked the blind against the window panes and teetered in the leaves of the trees. Pa snored and was chid by Ma. All these sounds measured the silence of the night which at length was terminated by the waking poultry, and I had to face the day and Harold Beecham. Fortunately he departed early to inspect stock, as he had grass to spare. On other days he attended the sales in Goulburn, which is a big centre. He returned incredible distances to spend the nights at ‘Possum Gully. The surplus condition was knocked off those flying ponies.

Grandma took a hand presently. Possibly Aunt Jane had reported, though Aunt Jane was jolly good for an old codger, and carried on her combats with me single-handed without tittle-tatting. Grandma seemed to stamp over Ma and be as contemptuous of her as Ma is of me. It was disgraceful, she said, for a girl to be so much talked about as Sybylla was. What on earth could Ma be doing to allow it? She did not like to hear of me attracting Henry Beauchamp, a dirty old fellow who could cast his eye on married women, and who should have had a wife of his own long ago, seeing he had plenty to keep one.

Bang, bang, went romance under Grandma’s touch!

She could not sleep at night for fear she would hear of me coming to harm. I was sick of this “coming to harm” notion. According to it girls have always to be chaperoned or armed against men’s ravening. My experience so far has contained no hint of such unbuttonedness. Not one of my lovers ever put his hand on me except to my toe to toss me to horse back. As for a kiss, I should have fled in horror from one so unchaste as to suggest such a thing. In my code, a kiss could come only after definite engagement. Pa always said, “It doesn’t matter what a man says to you: words cannot hurt us if we have sense, but never allow a man to place his hand on you. Make him show his respect by keeping his distance.”

The men evidently knew this as well as Pa, and acted upon it scrupulously. They never disrespected me further than to beg me to marry them. Some of them offered in return to leave Australia to settle in South Africa or New Zealand to meet my desire for travel. City people, of course, were much more wicked than country ones. It is probably city men, I thought, who are sensual and coarse.

Grandma’s suspicions roused even Ma’s dander a little. She said as a girl it had always been annoying to her to be watched as if she were an incontinent drab who couldn’t impose respect upon any man she ever met. During this attack of Grannie’s, Ma was the least off my side I had ever known her. She said, however, if I intended to marry, I had better think of picking the best of the men who came along, as Pa was useless as a provider, and in a world arranged as this one was, the only boat to success for a woman is a rich man to dote on her and back her up. It was all very fine while I was young and saucy to be giggle-gaggling, but I would early find that a girl had small choice. It would be a miracle if there was someone at all acceptable. That is how Ma had found it.

Ma was not at all a slavish advocate of marriage, She said if women had the sense to organise themselves and refrain from marriage till they had won better conditions there wouldn’t be so many wives wishing they had had some other chance to earn their living, nor so many spinsters either thankful they had escaped marriage or regretful that they had not known the fulfilment of love. Ma said also that many girls married out of mere curiosity, but quickly had too much of THAT.

Grandma wrote again that if Beauchamp was in earnest it would be a lucky disposal of me, Richard being such a failure and I so self-willed. Grandma was away back in the stages of thinking that it was natural for women to be quelled by marriage and the giving birth to as many children as God’s will or a rabbit’s example dictated. She and Father O’Toole were in the same boat in putting God’s will and the rabbit’s instinct on the one level, though Grannie was such a vigorous Protestant and Father O’Toole such a sealed Roman that either would have argued till he or she was blue without budging an inch, and have called the other a benighted bigot.

Aren’t old people silly when you question their ideas, and yet they prate at us as if they were God Himself!

The bickering continued about me and Henry and other young men. When I came to think it over, I never heard Grannie say a good word of Ma, and yet Ma was the most beautiful and capable daughter a woman could have. Ma was passing on this piece of heredity. Perhaps, I began to think, you could not respect a thing you made yourself, or else they had such high standards that they concentrated on flaws and took excellences for granted. There were other mothers though who thought their children marvels because they were their own.

Grandma wanted to know had Beauchamp taken up permanent residence with us. If he was trifling with me, it was in rather a queer way. I had a hundred notes, most of them telling me what he was going to do with me when he married me. And he had had a long talk with Pa, who said not to worry me yet. I said I would not think of marrying until I was at least forty. Henry said no one would want to marry me then, and I said I would not want them to, so we would be quits.

He would laugh with unruffled good-humour. “You’re as good as Mrs. Henry Beauchamp already. You cooked your own fish. I’m ready to spell my name Beecham to fit in—more sensible in any case. I’m willing to wait a year.”

I said I would not marry Adonis himself, until I was twenty-one, and he said he would wait three years, but not another day. I murmured that sixty would be early enough to enter the field of bad health for women called marriage.

“What whims you have. Marriage is a sacred institution.”

“That’s superstition you have foisted on to us just to clamp us down for your own amusement.”

However, upon finding that he and his station were connected with my book I felt responsible. This put much worry into my soul and took the fun out of parrying his advances. How I longed for someone to understand and help me. Old Harris might have understood well enough to decide if I must in honour submit to this “entanglement”, but he had gone to England and had not yet sent me his address. I played for time.

Into these days of surface entertainment and underground worry Old Grayling again barged like a mad bull. He was just as luny as our most aristocratic bull, who would put himself against fence posts or toss gates on his horns and tear up anything that came in his way, even his favourite heifers. At certain seasons we had to leave everything open until he calmed down.

Old Grayling came jolting and swaying up to the side gate, the black now considerably subdued, but incited to show off, as the flash young shearer pricks up his horse when he thinks the girls are looking. Pa and Henry went out to meet him. Grayling gave the reins to Pa and roared, “I have come to see Sybylla. She avoids me. She does not answer my letters. I make her an honourable proposal of marriage. I’m prepared to give way to her in everything...”

I fled. Old Grayling caught sight of my dress as I dashed in the front gate and along the verandah to the spare bedroom. With a shout and surprising speed he leapt after me. He looked in the door, but I was under the bed, and he dived into the main house. I scrambled out the window, scattering Henry’s brushes as I went. Old Grayling caught another glimpse of me from the back door. Pa was left in bewilderment with the horse.

The old toad suspected me of a repetition of tactics and tore to an unmentionable apartment to outwit me. I saw him leathering past from the shelter of the fowl house and sped once more to the consoling friendliness of the pigs. A motherly old sow enjoyed being scratched, and stood contentedly as a screen while I indulged her.

I could descry unusual motion at the house. Ma came out and about looking for me. Aunt Jane followed, then Pa and Henry. They had a colloquy, after which Pa went to the outhouse, knocked on the door and asked Mr. Grayling if he were ill. He came out and began to rage. I could not hear it all because I had to huddle behind the sow. She thought I wanted a drink, and grunted so loudly that much of the argument was lost; also they went behind the fowl houses and that cut off their voices.

Ma came to the gate and called that tea was ready, and I saw Pa urging Old Grayling to come. He waved his arms like a wind mill and bellowed a little, but soon they went inside together.

Henry came from the kitchen calling softly to me and looking everywhere and saying, “I know where you are.” Now and again he laughed to himself till he shook, which showed that he had no understanding of my feelings. It was coarse and thick-skinned to laugh at such a caricature of LOVE, when he himself was pretending to be in its thrall.

After a while Pa came looking for him, and when they disappeared inside, I said ta-ta to the pigs. Feeding time was approaching, and I meant to stay out all night or until Old Grayling left. I circled to the hayshed where I climbed near the roof and made a warm sweet-smelling nest. Baby mice squeaked, and a lizard visited me, and I must have been there two hours when Pa came for the horse. Old Grayling shook hands all round and drove away at a wild bat. I slid down, took every straw off me, crept around by the buggy shed and sheep yards, and reappeared as if I had come over the hill. Pa was feeding the pigs, who were squealing at being neglected, and he came to meet me.

Pa never said a flaying word to me in his life, no matter how debbil-debbil I may have been. “I’m sorry you have been frightened, my girl,” he said.

I wasn’t frightened. Thunderstorms, mad swaggies, bulls breaking out, fractious horses, bush fires—any of the things that frighten most girls—do not upset me, but things about which they exchange smutty confidences can sicken me all through and drop me in a cauldron of nerves. This was one of them.

Pa inquired how it had begun. I told him of the letter and how I had run away before and how Ma had scolded me for being remiss.

“But we never suspected. If you had confided in your mother all this could have been avoided.”

“Oh,” I said, shrivelling, “it has disgusted me so that I’d hate Ma to say the wrong thing.”

“Your mother is a wonderful woman. I’ll speak to her. You’ll have to be wise and full of mercy in meeting all these situations.”

Aunt Jane was a boon as she kept Henry talking in the front garden while I plunged into preparations for dinner. Pa moved in and out of the kitchen bringing wood and filling the water cask, as a protection. During dinner I kept behind the flowers, and Henry never said a word to me, though I knew that his eyes were constantly on me.

Afterwards Ma helped me wash-up and sent Eusty to turn the horses out.

“You should have told me when Mr. Grayling first wrote to you,” she said, but not in a disciplinary tone.

“Oh, I couldn’t! You always blame me so, and I could not stand any more. Loathsome old toad, he makes me sick.” I burst into tears and hid in the pantry and left Ma to the work. She did it like a lamb.

“Come,” she said at length, “no harm has been done. The poor old man is childish, and this has overtaken him. Old men are often like that.”

“Do old women go like that too?” I asked, overcome by a horrifying possibility.

“No. Old women are never as silly as old men. When he comes again, go into my room and I’ll say you are not here for the day; and he will soon be himself again.”

Ma had never been so clement to me. She further acquiesced that I should retire without reappearing. As I lay awake I pondered another inconsistency. If old men being thus disgusting was so usual that Ma could be quite calm about it, why did men give themselves such airs about having all the brains and strength of mind? The more I thought, the more did old men seem like the God they had set up in their own image for women and children to worship.